The present invention relates to an internal combustion engine analyzer, and more particularly to an analyzer for evaluating engine performance by monitoring exhaust gas emissions from the engine being analyzed.
The servicing of vehicle engines is becoming increasingly important because of road safety considerations and the public awareness of automotive emissions on the environment. In addition, the engines of current vehicles are becoming more difficult and complicated to diagnose and analyze.
Therefore it is highly desireable to provide the automotive mechanic with as much information as possible pertaining to the performance of the internal combustion engine being tested, for aiding the mechanic in diagnosing and repairing engine problem conditions.
More specifically, it is highly desireable to provide the mechanic with a device which will provide more information pertaining to individual cylinder combustion efficiency. The emissions gases (combustion by-products) contained in the engine exhaust provide an indication of combustion efficiency, however due to the slow response time of a gas measuring system at the automotive tailpipe, a change in emissions level caused by the firing of an individual cylinder will not be seen until several seconds after the cylinder has fired.
Nonetheless, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved internal combustion engine analyzer for evaluating engine performance using exhaust gas emissions data collected on a per cylinder basis.
It is another object of the present invention to display to the automotive mechanic emissions data accumulated from a vehicle engine in an easy-to-understand form for facilitating automotive repairs.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an improved device for visually displaying to the operator mechanic an indication of the concentration of a particular engine emission gas occurring in accordance with the efficiency of firing of a select cylinder of the engine.
It is also another object of the present invention to provide an engine analyzer in which the operator may selectively inhibit a select cylinder from firing for generating information as to the concentration level of a particular emissions pollutant in association with indicia identifying the select cylinder inhibited.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an engine analyzer which displays a combustion by-product value for a particular cylinder in visual association with the displayed number of the cylinder to which the by-product is related.
It is another object of the present invention to extend the conventional operating range of hydrocarbon gas measurement above 2000 ppm when performing a cylinder firing inhibition test.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an engine analyzer which generates a display of the absolute change of a by-product emission caused by a select cylinder firing inhibition.